WW1 Hammer Brand Engineer Knife?

[bobcat87]

Found this on Ebay. I think this might be one of the first Engineer Knives ever made. Is this a WW1 Engineer knife? I read that New York Knife Co. went out of business in 1931 and that the punch was patented in 1902. I believe this knife is pretty scarce as I have been unable to find out much on it. Any expert opinions?

[268th C.A.]

I'm not an expert either, I looked in Coles book, The closet Ii see is made by Camillus, with the same tools. Your large blade the top is cut differnt. Listed as Army Engineers and Marine Corps Utility knife.

[Still-A-Marine]

Since it stamped ARMY KNIFE leads me to think it's not military issue.

 

Bill

[sactroop]

I read somewhere that the New York Knife Co. was the first to make an official Boy Scout knife. Looks like a good piece to have in your collection.

[bobcat87]

Regardless of whether or not it is official issue, I saw the huge nickel silver bar shield and fell in love with it. If I try to read the knife, it seems to have the exact blade configuration as the Crown Cutlery Company example on page 90 of Michael Silvey's book "The Complete Book of US Military Pocket Knives". It also seems to have been manufactured around the same time frame. This particular knife is not shown though. I realize that it says ARMY KNIFE. Could this knife be like the Russell "NAVY KNIFE" rope knife that is not official issue because it lacks the "US" designation?

[bayonetman]

Is it marked to the New York Knife Company? Hammer Brand was used by Imperial in the 1930s after New York went out of business.

 

I am finding this thread interesting, even though it is not Camillus related. From what few records I have, the Army does not seem to have ordered Engineer knives until the late 1930s.

 

Here is the Camillus version, dates from the late 1930s to about 1940.

 

[bobcat87]

Yes Gary it is marked New York Knife Co. on the secondary and Hammer Brand on the Master. This is one of the knives I told you about earlier today. It is a real curiosity.

[bobcat87]

Michael Silvey claims in his book on page 80(misquoted above as page 90) that perhaps Crown Cutlery Company produced the first engineer knife. Crown Cutlery went out of business in 1930. Could New York Knife Co. be another producer of an early engineer knife from the same time frame? New York Knife Co. went out of business in 1931. Could it be from the post WW1 and pre WW2 time frame? Many questions...

[bobcat87]

Wow Gary! That is an awesome knife. Looks the same. Was the Camillus an issue knife?

[Still-A-Marine]

...... I realize that it says ARMY KNIFE. Could this knife be like the Russell "NAVY KNIFE" rope knife that is not official issue because it lacks the "US" designation?

That is my thought exactly. Having said that I sill collect the NAVY KNIFE folders along with the other rope knives I have.

 

Bill

[bobcat87]

After seeing Gary's Camillus "ARMY KNIFE", I would think that if his was issued by the Army there would be a good chance that my knife was issue too. One thing I have noticed in collecting military knives is that the knives issued start to trend toward conformity (bail markings, blade configurations, lack of etches, shields, etc.). It will all depend upon if there were knives issued marked ARMY KNIFE. Also, during the 1920's and 1930's it would seem logical that production would be much less than during war times, so we would see fewer and rarer examples. For the aforementioned reasons, I believe it possible that during the time period from WW1 to the late 30's that issued knives could have been marked this way. Gary stated earlier that we lack records from this era. More important is that our assumptions about Engineer knives being produced only during WW2, or just right before, could be incorrect. There may be even earlier examples...

[bayonetman]

As far as when Camillus began to sell the Engineer knife to the military, the earliest record that Tom Williams had found when we were corresponding was 1940. It is possible that they sold some prior to that time, or that Tom found other records later that I did not know of.

 

Camillus did produce an Engineer style knife sometime prior to the one I showed above, but it was marked Scout Knife and had plastic handles and the earlier can opener. As a note, I wish the Army Knife was mine, but the photos were sent to me by a collector on the west coast and I have never actually handled it.

 

The period between the wars was one of limited funding for the military, especially in the 1930s. I have not seen any records of pocket knives being purchased during the 1930s except for the Signal Corps knife, the TL-29. I tend to feel, without any real backup, that it was circa 1940 before the military began to purchase any quantities of pocketknives.

 

The Camillus record for the Engineer Knife stated: 14F31 - 4 blade with clevis - first made with brass liners and nickel silver bolsters for Engineers in 1940. Although not specifically stated in that listing, these were fitted with jigged bone handles (listed as bone stag). Whether or not these were the first deliveries, or if the shield was marked Army Knife until the change to U.S.A. was made, I don't know.

 

Photo below of the Scout Knife (missing its clevis), similar pattern but with old can opener and plastic handles.

 

 

[bobcat87]

So there are very few records of what was sold to the military between the wars from Camillus. This makes sense as the military was nowhere near the size it was during WW1. You would imagine that there was still a need for the same pocket knives, just much less in quantity. Of course they would have utilized whatever knives they had left over from WW1 between the wars.

 

Most technology tends to evolve from inventions for the military. The military also tends to utilize the best technology available to them even during times of limited funding. I think that the Scout Knife was originally intended for the military and then picked up on by the Scouts. Maybe it was sold to the Scouts and became labeled a Scout Knife because it could not be sold to the military in any quantity at the time of invention. I would tend to think that the Scout Knife would have been sold to the military when there was a need. I do not know this for sure because I am not a Scout Knife expert, but it seems the Scout Knife was around before WW1. This would make me think that they were used during WW1. Does anyone know when the Scout Knife was invented?

 

Maybe Camillus labeled the knife ARMY KNIFE because prior to WW2 they were all labeled SCOUT KNIFE in order to make a distinction. Then after that the Army requested that they be labeled U.S.A..to cut down on cost. Again, just some ideas...

[sactroop]

I remembered where I read about the New York Knife Co.

The following is a partial excerpt from “600 Scout knives by Joseph R. Kerr-1997”.

While the book is focused on over 80 years of the Boy Scout knives, chapter 2 of the book addresses the evolution of the basic utility knife.

“EVOLUTION OF THE "BOY SCOUT KNIFE”

The development of the modern UTILITY KNIFE involved United States knife development, European knife development, two USA Congress trade tariffs, and two world wars. But it was the Boy Scouts of America that brought the utility knife to its current status in American usage. In doing so, BSA also set the stage for Americans to import "Swiss Army Knives" in today's high volume.”

“IV. USA MILITARY UTILITY KNIVES

After about 1900, some knife makers advertised four-blade and six-blade utility knives as "army" or "navy" or even "army/navy" knives. Probably some individuals in the military services bought such knives, but knife researchers do not think that the military itself was involved with such knives with one exception. The exception was a purchase by the U. S. Army Medical Corps before WWI of a 3.50" swell-center jack with a stag handle, corkscrew, and saw.

Attitudes about the utility knife changed dramatically between the two World Wars. The servicemen of WWII had been boys and Boy Scouts since WWI, using the utility knife for camping. During WWII the U.S. government purchased millions of utility knives for issue to marines, navy medical corpsmen, and soldiers. Some knives had the standard four blades and bone stag handles. Some three-blade models existed. Some knives had shields marked with the US service branch initials, but most knives had neither shield nor markings. By WWII the utility knife pattern was so much associated with scouting that the U.S. Army Air Force Pilots' Information File (a loose-leaf manual) in listing its Vest Type Emergency Kit contents named the enclosed knife "Boy Scout knife".

For commandos and troops given mountain assignments, beginning in 1942, the U. S. Army had Ulster Knife Company manufacture a moderately downsized utility knife with a Phillips screwdriver. As a five-blade it was nothing unusual, but with the blade welded onto the bail it has a rather unique place in knife history. Some knives, with sheepfoot or spey blades replacing the bottlecap-lifter/screwdriver blade, also exist. Handles remained bone stag.

The early military orders resulted in knives like civilian models with jigged bone and inlaid shields. But near 1945 the U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps switched to flat checkered-like stainless steel for knife handles. This style would eventually show up as Boy Scout and Girl Scout knives. The blades remained carbon steel in the military models until the 1950s when the newer issues became completely stainless.

The military experience would provide another boost to multi-functional knives. The American WWII servicemen, many aware of the utility knife from boyhood days, by the thousands seemed to fall in love with the "Swiss Army Knives". Swiss Army Knife is really a misnomer, for the knife made for the Swiss Army is simply the regular four-bladed utility pattern. Because of the other Swiss knives offered, our mental image of Swiss Army Knife is of a tool kit with a few knife blades. Today both Victorinox and Wenger make modern day four-bladed utility issues for Swiss soldiers, and in recent years both have manufactured knives for Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts, Explorers, and Girl Scouts.

V. BOY SCOUT EARLY YEARS

At first the four-bladed utility knife did not really catch on in this country. What established the pattern was its designation in 1910 or 1911 as the "official" camping knife for the Boy Scouts of America. This new character building organization was begun in the USA in 1910, modeled after a similar British organization established in 1908. In 1916 the Boy Scouts of America was granted a federal charter by the U.S. Congress, thereby settling the court battles as to which organization was the real scout organization (see Chapter 16). Since that time it has served about 70,000,000 youth from ages six to 18. For a few years the New York Knife Company had a monopoly on the manufacturing of official Boy Scout knives. The utility knife pattern was known to New York Knife (NYK) as "Boy Scout Number 1," the first of hundreds of scout knives.”

While I only consider the above as the authors interpretation of what his research had provided him, I thought it maybe worth including it here for consideration.

[bobcat87]

Here is some research from ScoutKnives.net.

 

I just found out the first Boy Scout knife was made in 1911 by New York Knife Co. It was made from 1911-1916. Notice that It had a "BE PREPARED" shield with a pinned clevis. The second design By New York Knife Co. was made 1917-1922. It had a "BE PREPARED shield and the same type of removable shackle as the "ARMY KNIFE".

 

It appears that the New York Knife Co. was manufacturing two knives in this pattern from 1917 to 1922, the 2nd design Boy Scout knife and the "ARMY KNIFE". I believe that it is very likely that this knife was an Army issue knife as it fits the time frame of America's involvement in WW1.

[bobcat87]

Here are the pictures.

[bobcat87]

Also, New York Knife Company was THE company exclusively manufacturing the Boy Scout knife. If the military was to choose any manufacturer to provide this knife to the military, it probably would have been New York Knife Co..

[bobcat87]

Another trend I have noticed is this. It appears to me that the first military pocket knives with labeled shields became prevalent during the WW1 era. The Signal Corps knives were the first known. I think the New York Knife Co. "ARMY KNIFE" could be the first pinned shield engineer knife manufactured for the Army. If this is true, it would stand to reason that possibly later knives manufactured with the "ARMY KNIFE" shield would be issued knives like the 1930's Camillus that Gary posted.

 

I think the info on the Scout Knife that Sactroop posted may be true immediately after 1900, but this knife was made from 1917-1922 and New York Knife Co. was a military supplier. They manufactured WW1 rope knives. Why would they not manufacture the Scout Knife they invented for the Army?

[bobcat87]

Additionally, I noticed in the article that Sactroop posted that the author states in Section IV. USA Military Utility Knives, Paragraph 2, Sentence 2 that "Attitudes about the utility knife changed dramatically between the two world wars. The servicemen of WW2 had been boys and Boy Scouts since WW1 using the utility knife for camping."

 

I believe that an even more fitting statement would be "Attitudes about the utility knife changed dramatically during WW1. The servicemen of WW1 had been boys and Boy Scouts since 1910, using the utility knife for camping." The boys that were in the scouts would have been 12 years old in 1910. That would make those same boys 17 or 18 years old in 1917, old enough to join the military. It makes sense that those boys would take the same type of knife they grew up with to war. This would be yet another reason for this knife to have been an issued by the military with an ARMY KNIFE shield...

[bobcat87]

I think that Michael Silvey is on the right track with his belief about the Crown Cutlery Company example of an issue knife prior to 1930 on page 80 of his book. The knife that is pictured does have a shield marked "US Army" which would conform to our beliefs about how these knives are marked. But what if prior to WW2 the shield was not considered as part of the conformity at the time? Military pocket knife shields seem to be a new development of some pre WW1 knives like the Boy Scout "BE PREPARED" knives. The upside down Boy Scout knife shields above seem to be the first markings of the Scout /Engineer ARMY type camp knives. What if Army Engineer knives were also first marked this way before any conformity of shields and markings of these knives were implemented? After all, Gary stated above that there are not many records from this era. I have a hard time believing that this monumental new knife design prior to WW1 (that would be so beneficial to the troops) would not have been issued. What if any standard of conformity was not implemented until after WW1 or during? I realize that there were WW1 knives made by various manufacturers with tin openers and rope knife blades. But with the great surprise of WW1 being forced upon us after the murder of Archduke Francis Ferdinand and the build up to the war, would it not be reasonable to believe that just like WW2 many knives would have been pressed into service? Would the Army not have purchased anything they could find?

 

After all, we do have the P14 and the P17 rifles that were manufactured due to our lack of preparedness. We did not have enough 1903 rifles at the time

 

Am I completely wrong in my thinking? The marked pocket knife shield does seem to be a new invention of the knife industry from just prior to WW1. They are very rare though because the knife was new and the US was only involved in the war from 1917 to 1918.